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Kyle Lowry sits, Raptors get hammered by Bulls: Arthur

CHICAGO—Some games provoke existential reflection, especially when they follow about two months of similar games. On Friday night the Toronto Raptors went to Chicago and their best player sat and they got hammered by a team they’re racing for playoff seeding. They dropped from third in the East to fourth in the East. It was a measure of the last two months that the reaction was a sort of despair.

“I think we need to stop worrying about the playoffs and start worrying about the next game, take it game by game,” said Kyle Lowry, who did not play in Toronto’s 108-92 loss with a badly bruised back. “I think we’re looking too far ahead. We’re thinking way too far ahead. I think we’re worried about things that are two, three months away. We need to worry about the day-to-day stuff.”

“I totally agree,” said DeMar DeRozan, who led Toronto with 27 points, but who got little help. “We didn’t win a championship last year. We haven’t done nothing to feel that way, think that way. We need to grow every single day, and get better, and understand how to win games game in and game out, and not wait for a big situation.”

Essentially, the Raptors were copping to coasting, to taking the playoffs for granted after a 24-7 start, which is clearly an incomplete explanation, but a salient one. Management has wondered the same thing. Coach Dwane Casey has been complaining about the turnstile defence for a while, and he added another chapter Friday, as the Bulls blitzed Toronto for 60 first-half points, and outscored them 54-26 in the paint. Toronto was up 19-12 early, and that was as good as it got.

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“There have been too many games in that same situation where we get down and then the lightbulb come on for us to fight,” said DeRozan. “This should help us break it up. (We should be) getting tired of losing, honestly . . . realizing that there may be some games where we can pull it off, but you know, we’re not going to win the way we expect to win.”

Everyone wants an epiphany, but a team that plays defence like this 69 games into the season is unlikely to locate a big lightbulb string and pull it. Playing the Knicks might help, but you are your habits, and the Raptors have established theirs.

It’s clear that seeding isn’t really the issue, not now. Home-court advantage would be nice, sure, and Milwaukee’s lack of shooting and experience might be welcome. Washington’s inexperience, too, even if it’s not like the Raptors are grizzled vets.

Chicago, with all that size, would be a problem. Bearded Slavic castaway Nikola Mirotic had 29 points and 11 rebounds in 32 minutes Friday, and was loved fiercely by his adopted home. Joakim Noah fist-bumped everybody in every hallway on the way into the building, tapping their elbows or their shoulders if they weren’t looking, and then recorded the second 14-assist game by a centre since 1980; he had the other one, too. This was a beating.

So Toronto should heed Lowry’s words and start focusing game to game, if only because the horizon could be a bloodbath. Friday, Terrence Ross daydreamed his way to a 4-for-13 night, and Lou Williams’s shooting was stuck on its off switch, and Vasquez went 5-for-15. Jonas Valanciunas, meanwhile, took one shot in 24 minutes, and disappeared. This is a make-or-miss team, and if the offence isn’t clicking then the defence suffers and everything can slip away.

“We can’t slide into the playoffs like we just got by because we had a great first half of the season,” said DeRozan. “You know, we’ve been playing bad basketball lately, and we need to find a rhythm and understand who we are going into the playoffs. That’s the only way we’re going to have a chance to get out of the first round.”

The defence probably isn’t going to be fixed, but Lowry could be. His three-game break at the start of the month brought back glimmers of the guy who was playing all-NBA basketball back when the Raptors were an all-NBA team — a triple-double here, a 32-point night there — and that’s the only hope, really. The rim gets smaller in the playoffs, and bad defence gets exposed. Maybe if Lowry comes back, and the ball starts going in, and the energy spreads to the defence, just enough . . .

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The Raptors may be approaching magical thinking territory, but eh, it’s worth a shot. In Game 7 against Brooklyn last year everyone remembers the very end, but it’s harder to recall that with a little over three minutes left Toronto trailed by nine, and it was Lowry who dragged them back. He scored eight of their final 14 points, assisted on another, after dragging that swollen knee through the back half of the series.

And after Lowry couldn’t quite clear Paul Pierce’s fingertips, DeMar DeRozan fell on top of him and yelled over and over that if he wanted anybody to take that shot, it was Kyle. He wanted Lowry to know the Raptors needed him to have a chance.

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